The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1887-04-28
A DAY IN THE COUNTRY.

|
A Delightful Day Spent on the Banks of
| the Neuse-- A bout Farming, Crops and
Beautiful Scenery. &c.
Editorial Correspondence
Oh! friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural pleasures past.
-!CowPER.
FALLS OF NEUsE, Wake Co., April 19-
Leaving the train at Neuse this morning
at 10 O'Clock, took my seat in the buggy
with Mr.. w. F. Askew, and behind his
blooded horse, we travelled through
three miles of some of the best farming
land in the county of Wake. 1t was per-
feet morning. The sun was shining, the
fresh breath of morn was stirring, the
birds were singing their matin hymns, the
farmers plowing and making their prepa-
rations for planting. 1t was delightful
scene of rural life, and l enjoyed it the
more because of the confinement in my
city Office. l enjoyed the drive also be-
cause it gave me an opportunity of seeing
for myself that part Of Wake in which so
many of the best farmers in the county
live, and to mark the advancement of the
Spring work. find that the farmers have
lost no time and that, notwithstanding the
bad weather and the backwardness of
Spring, there is such progress in the work
as to warrant the prediction that, with an
average season, the crop yield will be
large. l think less land will be titled but
that the farmers are determined to make
a few acres, we'll manured and we'll titled,
yield as much as large areas poorly ma
nured and titled. And that is the wise
plan. Intensive farming is the only kind
that pays. Mr.. Askew told me of large
farm near Wake Forest on which the own
er always averaged considerably over a
bale to the acre. There can be little or no
profit in any farming less intensive than
bale of cotton to the acre.
| find that this is a cotton country and
that few people try tobacco and that the
best kind of tobacco is not grown here.
Zine tobacco pays" said good farmer,
''but it is so hard to make it fine and the
risk is so great, that no farmer except a
rich one who can afford to lose, or poor
one who has droves of children to do the
work, can engage proftaby in making it. -
Cotton, after all, is the best paying
market crop farmers in Eastern North
Carolina can make. And it is the safest.
There is rarely a complete failure, and it
does not require skilled and careful labor
ers to make it, Neither does a farmer
have to pay warehouse fees, or wait for a
sale, or have any trouble with it after it
is baled. These are material inducements
to continue its cultivation.
l reckon all men who live in towns and
cities love to go to the country. l know
it is a pleasure and delight that nothing
else affords me. Bill Arp says it amuses
him to see men from town write gush-
ingly of fields and flowers and harvest
moon and brooks and grand old woods
and setting suns and happy birds and
tinkling bells and cotter's Saturday night.
He thinks all that is mighty pretty, but
that there is mighty little fun in planting
cotton or pulling fodder. There amt
much hilarity," he says, "about getting
stung with packsaddle or fodder blade,
or waking up yallerjackets nest. Far
mers are not tickled to death over picking
cotton all day as hard as they can pick,
and thinking they will get 900 pounds
and it weighs out about $50, or in getting
up in the morning and finding half a
dozen of your nabor's hogs in your field,
and having to run after 'em all through
the wet grass and then can't make 'em go
out at the same break they came in"
Whenever I ''take my pen in hand" to
write about the delights of the farmers
life, think of Bill Arp and the practical
way he has of taking the sentiment out of
the occupation of the tillers of the soil,
and am not willing to ''amuse" him and
other farmers by going into ecstasies over
rural life. And yet the whiff of cou9try
air in this delightful retreat, and the
beauty of the scenery and the glory of the
day, would excuse some degree of enthu-
siastic praise of the country and country
life.
Leaving Waynesville on the way to the
White Sulphur Springs Hotel, there is a
drive of mile through as lovely valley
as my eyes have rested upon. There is
| muCn similarity Ill Tic SC0tle ucTe. 1uc
Neuse flows over rocks and on either side
of the river mountain-like cliffs rise, as
from Pigeon River There are not noun
tains, of course, but the rugged hills look
very much like mountains, and the music
of the waters, rushing over the dam and
rocky bed of the river, make such music
that am not surprised that it charmed
the Indian youth and maidens, and made
it popular trysting place in the days be-
fore the pale-faced nation took it as their
possession. l was shown an Indian pipe,
found in the bottom of the Neuse, which
is one of other evidences that the Falls of
the Neuse was the location Of an Indian
camp. A more suitable place for these
rude people, who loved rugged scenery and
delighted in the sport of fishing and hunt
ing could not be found. And now that
the fertile valleys have been cleared and
the tillage of the soil gives a generous
yield, this is the ideal country home.
But refreshing as was the country air,
and beautiful as was the scenery, these did
not call me to the Falls. For several years